Sloane Grammar School boy, if you seek your memorial,

 look around you but you'll need to register first.

Register and link up with old school friends again and become part of Sloane Reunited.

If you were a pupil or member of staff at Sloane you qualify to register for the website. Click on Missing Classmates at the top of this page to see if we've been expecting you. If you see your name, click on it and follow instructions. If your name's not there click on BECOME A MEMBER to learn more and then click the ADD NAME button to start the ball rolling or click Contact Us at the top of the page, read what you see then complete the box at the bottom of that page to ask me to add your name to the list.

It's Free, it's Easy, it's Secure

and

You're Never Alone As A Sloane

TO ALL MEMBERS, DON'T FORGET!! -

PLEASE CHECK THE ANNOUNCEMENTS BOARD AT THE FOOT  OF THIS PAGE FOR ANYTHING IMPORTANT and, after you Log In, the CALENDAR OF EVENTS PAGE FOR DETAILS OF FORTHCOMING EVENTS. 

If you're having trouble logging in because you've forgotten your Password, click on Forgot Password? inside the Classmate Login box that appears after you click   Sign In   and you'll be Emailed a link to reset it.
 

You'll find other helpful tips under REMINDERS below.
 

  The Sloane

Hello and Welcome to

Mark Foulsham's

Sloane Grammar School website

If I built it I knew you would come

A School that invited loyalty

 
Gone But Not Forgotten

'Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade

Of that which once was great is pass'd away.'

William Wordsworth

On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic

You may think you're done with the past but the past isn't done with you!
 

"The merits of a school are judged as much by the men it produces as by their achievements as boys" - 

(Old Cheynean D.J. Cowie, March 1929)

 

If you're a member, click on an image (     ) at the top for more. 

Here's what you'll find -

   = Messages waiting in the Message Centre - 
              The red bubble shows how many.

   = Website activity - 
              Check for things you may have missed.
 

   = Member functions -
                Edit Profile, Edit Contact Info (to keep your Email Address/es, Home Address, and Phone number/s up to date. Add your Birthday here too if you didn't when you joined), Change Password, Log Out, Message Centre (to read and send messages to other members), Notify Me (for indicating your website Notification and  Profile Subscription choices).

     
         AND FINALLY, IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, -
 

Please let a close relative know of your participation in the Sloane website and show them how to use the Contact Us page to notify me in the sad event of your death. Not only will this allow me to notify other members, it will also put a stop to any website generated emails finding their way to your Inbox. Thank you.

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Come on in! 
Don't be late! 
This is one detention 
You'll be pleased to take.
               

    A WARM WELCOME 

to fellow Cheyneans and passers-by, from the Official Sloane Grammar School 1919-1970 Old Cheyneans and Friends web site.

I, Mark Foulsham, at Sloane 1963-70, created this site in August 2008 to record for posterity all that I can, and for all those who attended Sloane or simply have a Sloane connection, to share and enjoy. Feel free just to browse or, if you feel you qualify to join us, make full use of the site by becoming a Registered Classmate. It's Free! 

To start the registration process -

Click Here to Register 
 

If it doesn't work for you it's because I'm no longer around and new memberships aren't available. While I'm still alive, I'll also be happy to send a personal invitation to anyone else with a Sloane School Chelsea connection who you think might like to join us. Just enter their Email address in the MISSING CLASSMATES box to your right and click Send Invite.  

We may not understand why but memories of our days at Sloane remain with us while others do not. Whether they're good or they're bad, I'd like to give all old boys the opportunity to keep those memories alive.

 Aspirations and Objectives

Sloane never had a motto and although our school badge is based on the lion rampant and boar's head of the Cadogan family crest their motto, Qui Invidet Minor Est or He That Envies Is Inferior, is not really appropriate so I'll adopt the one to be found on the Coat of Arms of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea as it suits us nicely -

Quam Bonum In Unum Habitare

 (What A Good Thing It Is To Dwell Together In Unity) 

It is hoped, in some small way, to be able to have similar objectives to those stated for the first issue of The Cheynean in December 1926  -

"To record faithfully the major activities of the School, to promote and foster a corporate spirit in the School, to excite a greater keenness both in the games and in other phases of its social life, and to serve as a link between present members of the School and the Old Cheyneans".  -

and also to bring together, once again, old friends and classmates, and those of us who have outlived the school and share a common interest in its history and its future.

Sadly, I've no memory of having ever sung or even heard a school song but apparently one was written by music Master Mr Seymour Dicker (who retired in 1930) in 1928. Called Carmen Sloanense, it was first sung in July of that year by pupil J E Bush who played the Pirate King in Sloane productions of The Pirates of Penzance. What became of it after that first performance is a mystery but it contained the lines -

"Salve, the School and its scholars so keen,

 Long may they keep its memory green."

 If you've any memories of Sloane you'd like to share, use the Contact Us page to send them in and, whilst you're there, register for the site as well. 

Once you've registered, you can activate the Instant Messaging feature that allows you to hold a 'real-time' online conversation with anyone else who has logged on to the website. You can also send a message to someone else on the site via the Message Centre or by using their Profile. Click on their name on the Classmate Profiles page then click on the red 'Send ? a private message' at the top of their Profile.

After you've registered, why not take a look at all the Classmate Profiles ? Even if you don't know the person involved, the information they've put on their Profile can be interesting, illuminating and fun, and often brings back memories of something you thought you'd forgotten about.

If, at any time after becoming a member, you're unsure about anything click on this Using This Site link for an explanation or contact me direct via the Contact Us page.
              

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 Why Not Take a Look at Where your Classmates are Living?

Find out the Postcode of a Classmate from their Profile (if they've agreed to let everyone know it) then Click on the link below, enter the details where it says 'Address', then Click on 'Go'. Not every country is covered yet and those that are have limited coverage, but it's worth a try.

Here's the link. Have fun - http://www.vpike.com/

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The Sloane News

BREAKING NEWS!

As adults return to work following the festive period, children across the nation have today asked if a year of good behaviour was really worth a couple of days playing with toys they’re already bored with.

After a year of financial difficulty for many families, budgets have been stretched to give ungrateful children a series of over-priced plastic novelty items that have already been discarded forever.

One eleven-year-old told me,

“Santa has let me down, frankly.  I don’t buy all this recession rubbish. All year long my parents have told me that Santa was watching me to make sure I was well-behaved, and I so was. Yet all I got was a Play Station 5, an electric scooter, a football goal, some transformers, a spiderman, a remote control car and about a dozen other things I haven’t even opened yet, but they’ll be rubbish, I just know it. I have to tell you, a year spent fighting my natural urge to behave like an out-of-control psychopath really doesn’t seem worth it.”

Parents groups have defended the commercialisation of the holiday, claiming the threat of Santa seeing them is the only thing stopping their broods turning every home into a modern reenactment of Lord of the Flies.

A concerned parent said,

“For the last few years my standard disciplinary technique has been to simply shout ‘Santa is taking notes you know’. But if the kids don’t appreciate the tat I buy them after the threats, where is my leverage? No, you don’t understand; my kids are evil, I am genuinely frightened where this will all end.”

Another told me,

“Next year I’m going to hire a hypnotist to make my kids think they’ve had all these great presents, and that they are already bored of them – it will be much, much cheaper.”

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JOKES OF THE WEEK

Depends whether New Year's Eve is as funny as Christmas Eve was. I'll wait and see............

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THOUGHTS OF THE WEEK

There's a lot to think about. Just give me time................

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The Story of The NEVERWELLS (WHO ARE NEVER OUT OF TROUBLE)

Many years ago I picked up a small book at a car boot sale and now, with over three years in the world of Covid behind us, I thought it might be a good time to share its contents with you. 

The book in question, published in 1948 (the year the NHS came into being), is titled The Story of The Neverwells (Who Are Never Out Of Trouble) and was written by William Edwards, a doctor, under the pseudonym Dr. Goodenough.

The Neverwells included mum and dad, their small boy Billy, growing-up Mary and baby Roy, and came into being after the Editor of The People newspaper met two people on a train. One of them was a doctor friend of the Editor's, 'a kindly soul yet a man of the world who has one of the biggest practices in the South of England.' He said: 

"I am rushed off my feet these days. And in most cases I need not have been called in at all, if only people had a simple knowledge about ordinary illnesses."

Later, the Editor found himself talking to a woman passenger with two children -

"They're not too strong," she said, "always under the doctor with one thing or another. It's never serious you know, but the trouble is you can never be sure and so you must call the doctor."

The same night as he had spoken to the two people on the train, the Editor of The People telephoned his doctor friend and asked him if he would become Dr. Goodenough and write for him every week the story of a family - the Neverwell family - about their complaints and how he treated them, and in simple language so that ordinary people could at last learn the elementary things about illness.

For over a year before the book was published, Dr. Goodenough entertained and instructed People readers every week with the story of the never-ending complaints of the Neverwells. There were words of wisdom and understanding in these little features as well. So much so that, increasingly, the People was inundated with letters from readers asking for a book to be written. Hence, the book I picked up some 30 years after it was first published I now bring to you each time I update this Home Page of the website. I hope you find some enjoyment in its pages and can see the comparisons it enables us to make between the way medicine was practiced back then and how much it has advanced in such a relatively short space of time whilst the personal touch has moved in the opposite direction.

The following piece from the book concerns Mr Neverwell and the illness whose name alone confused most kids back in the day, Lockjaw -

Mr. Neverwell, cursing his carelessness, wrenched the fork out of his foot and limped into the house, where he soaked his foot in a basin of hot water, while his alarmed wife sent once more for Dr. Goodenough.

"Sorry to waste your time," he said to the doctor. "There's no bones broken. It went between them. Only wants a dab of iodine. But she would send for you..."

"Your wife has more sense than you have," retorted the doctor. "How much of your dab of iodine do you expect to penetrate right down that hole in your foot? None at all. You might as well show it the cork and take it away. Yet all the muck and dirt on that fork is wedged right down the bottom of that punctured hole. It gives me the shivers to think of it. It is really time people learned more about health and infection and all that. You get in a flap and bother about a little thing like a fainting attack, you're aghast at a few drops of blood; yet when you do something that may easily kill you, you talk about drops of iodine!"

"Oh, steady on, doctor. That couldn't kill me!" protested Mr. Neverwell. "I've had heaps worse cuts than that in my time."

"You can have all the clean cuts you like, and you can dab them with anything you like. You can even have dirty cuts and I won't worry, because the bleeding will probably wash the dirt out, and anyhow, your iodine, or whatever you like to use - didn't I recommend flavine, by the way? - will do the trick. But when you get a punctured wound, especially when you get a dirty punctured wound, and most of all when the dirt is garden dirt, which is full of the germs of lockjaw..."

"Lockjaw!" said Mr. Neverwell.

"Lockjaw?" gasped his wife. "But you only get that if you cut your thumb - between your thumb and your fingers."

"That's another superstition. The only truth about it is that it is the most likely part of the body to have garden dirt on it when you run a nail into it. It isn't where you cut yourself. It's what you cut yourself with that matters. You can cut your thumb right off with a sterile knife, and you won't get lockjaw. Another thing: this particular germ doesn't like fresh air. He can't do his dirty work in an open cut where the air can get at him. But shut him up down a hole like you've got - and you're dead in less than a week."

Mrs. Neverwell passed a hand in front of her forehead.

"D'you know; I think I'm going to faint," she said.

"Lie down on the floor, then," said the doctor. "but don't get in my way, because I'm going to give your husband an injection."

He gave an injection of anti-tetanus serum in Mr. Neverwell's leg. Then he injected penicillin right down the track of the fork. Then he handed him some sulphonamide tablets to take.

"The serum will prevent you getting lockjaw," he explained, and the penicillin and sulphonamide will kill off most of the other germs you've got in that foot. Aren't you grateful to modern science? You ought to be. That foot will heal up in two days and give you no more trouble. Rest it to-day, have a good night, and you'll be alright. Hope your back doesn't stiffen up again, that's all."

"It feels all right," said Mr. Neverwell.

"Nothing like a sore toe for taking your mind off a sore back. It's probably a blessing in disguise. Well, don't worry about it."

"I won't," said Mr. Neverwell. "But, tell me doctor. Suppose a chap emigrated, say, and did a thing like that somewhere where there were no doctors and no serum. Not so good, eh?"

"Not so good," agreed the doctor. "But, besides the serum which one can give at the time of the injury, it is now possible to inject what we call tetanus toxoid, which makes you permanently immune to lockjaw, and people going overseas, where there is any risk of this sort of thing, should have an injection before they go. Most of them do, nowadays. It is given at the same time as their injection against typhoid and paratyphoid - all in the one dose."

So Mr. Neverwell went to bed with an easy mind, but he did not sleep much, because his wife spent the whole night scratching. In the morning, a worn-out husband sent her to the doctor.

If you've got an itch, should you scratch it? Find out next time when Doctor Goodenough considers Scabies as the cause of Mrs. Neverwell's problem, rather than her husband. How would Dr. Neverwell's business survive without the Goodenough family?!

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* * * * *

The Home We Called Sloane
 

The Sloane building seen from Hortensia Road in 1908  

The Sloane building was 100 years old in 2008, although it didn't actually start life as a boys' school until after the First World War, during which it served as a hospital. It still stands and many memories are, no doubt, ingrained in its walls along with the odd name and ribald comment. Who knows what the future holds, despite its Grade II listing on May 7th, 2002. Grade II listed buildings can be altered, extended, or even demolished, but only with Local Authority consent, so it may be that the building is considered historically or architecturally interesting enough for it's fabric to remain untouched. Some consideration may have been given to it having been the first purpose-built secondary school in London, and it is certainly one of only 3% of all ages of listed buildings that was built in the 20th century. Schools generally are seen as a good investment by developers because they're easy to convert. They are likely to be structurally sound because the authorities will have inspected them regularly to ensure they comply with Health and Safety requirements. 

To learn more about what has happened to the building we left behind visit the Sloane Today page once you've become a registered member.

Sadly, Sloane Grammar School for Boys only lasted 51 years, from 1919-1970. Sloane old boy John Binfield, in one of his poems, writes -

... the school, with
All its past, was sucked into a huge
Turbulent sea of glass in Pimlico
And sank without trace. "full fathom five..

Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell.
Hark, now I hear them. Ding-dong bell".

The exterior of the building still survives in the form we all remember even if the interior doesn't. It would have been wonderful to have been able to celebrate, in 2019, what would have been its centenary as a boys' school, had it remained in existence as such. Unfortunately, for us, it wasn't to be, and the Covid-19 pandemic that gripped the world in 2020 and beyond didn't allow for a late celebration either. Maybe one day...... 
 

Sloane seen from the rear in 2014

* * *
   
This Website And The British Library's Web Archive

Please Note: - The school building still remains but not as a school. I've tried to preserve as much of its history and old boys' memories of it as I can, on this website. You might like to know that once I'm no longer around and have shuffled off to that classroom in the sky, this website will remain intact. Once my monthly payments to the Class Creator programmers cease the site will continue but to compensate them for their loss it will display adverts. If you're still around, you'll still be able to Log In to the site and carry on much as you did when I was alive. Naturally, the site will look exactly as it did (apart from the adverts) on the day I died. What will not be possible are any new members, unlikely as that is, as I won't be here to verify they are who they say they are.

In addition, in 2013 , just before the Legal Deposit regulations came into force, I asked to register the website with the British Library's UK Web Archive as one of historical interest and they agreed. So, when none of us are unable to Log In anymore or the Class Creator business ceases to operate, it will still be available for access by our children and grandchildren etc., as well as future historians, at this address -
 

Web Archiving
The British Library
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7184
E-mail: web-archivist@bl.uk

Since 2013, publishers need to give a copy of every UK publication they make to the British Library. Five other major UK libraries may also ask to be given a copy. This system is called legal deposit and it's been a part of English law since 1662.

Print publications for legal deposit can be books, journals, sheet music, maps, plans, charts or tables. Now legal deposit also covers material published digitally such as websites, blogs, e-journals and CD-ROMs.

Legal deposit has many benefits for publishers and authors. The deposited publications can be read inside the British Library and will be preserved for future generations. Their works become part of the nation’s heritage, providing inspiration for new books and other publications.

Unfortunately, in the case of websites, the British Library say that much of the information contained in them cannot be archived for technical reasons. In addition, as almost all this website's pages are Password Protected, it will be impossible for them to be accessed unless I remove that restriction. At some point I will give the British Library's 'web crawler' access to our Password Protected pages to allow it to take a 'snapshot' of the site on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or 6-monthly basis. At the time of writing this, 2020, their system doesn't have the capability to crawl and archive private content that sits behind a Log In procedure. They will never be allowed access to members' Profiles and the personal information they contain.

The current generation of web crawlers cannot capture:

• Interactive, dynamically generated content
• Content that is only available via a search engine on the website, or some other form submission method
• Some types of JavaScript-driven menus
• YouTube videos, Flash movies and similar streaming audio or video (some audio and video files can be captured, e.g. those embedded via the standard HTML5 <video> or <audio> tags).

Unlike static HTML, which is relatively easy to capture, script code is very hard for traditional web crawlers to analyse, which is why the Library runs web browsers for a limited part of their crawls. Even that cannot capture very interactive web sites, like single-page web applications, or any site feature that needs a remote server to function. In practical terms this means that entering queries into the search box of an archived version of a website will not work. Standard links on the website, however, will work as normal.

Some JavaScript driven menus do not function well once archived. YouTube videos, Flash movies, and similar streaming audio or video are also beyond the capability of web crawlers. However, as members of the International Internet Preservation Consortium, contributors to the UK Web Archive are developing tools which will help capture this content in the future.

Attempts are made to gather all of the objects associated with a website including html, images, PDF documents, audio and video files and other objects such as programming scripts. However, the crawler software cannot automatically gather any material that is protected behind a password, without the owner's collaboration. Web site owners may however choose to divulge confidentially a user ID and password to allow archiving of these areas. So, as I said, I'll collaborate with the British Library to allow them to gather only non-invasive non-personal information behind the password protection if and when their archiving system becomes capable of it .

* * *
 

Whatever our own personal reasons for it doing so, the school will still haunt most of us even if it disappears altogether. With that tenuous link, here's a poem that I came across in a copy of The Cheynean -

The Ghost of Sloane

 
When London's asleep and the School very quiet,
No sound of footsteps, no sound of a riot,
No sound of even the shuffle of feet,
No sound of the creak of a pupil's seat,
Out of the darkness the ghost of Sloane
Awakes from rest with a sigh and a groan.
Then up he arises to haunt the School
Climbing the stairs in the guise of a ghoul.
He shuffles and clanks down each corridor
Into the classrooms where stand desks galore.
He examines each desk and checks the boys' work,
Allots ghostly marks in the dark and the murk.

If you ever lose books from out of your desk,
And the teacher upbraids you and calls you a pest,
Just tell him my story, however tall,
Of the white shrouded phantom that haunts the School Hall.

                                                    J. Hollingshead (3C)

As for us, the boys who used to attend our Chelsea school, we probably considered ourselves 'Chelsea men' but I doubt that many of us fitted the description in this poem, written when he was in the 5th year by one time Sloane Schoolboy, A R Doubledee. I get the impression he didn't particularly approve of the 'Beatniks' of the late 50s and early 60s that he found himself sharing Chelsea with or, as he called them the 'Weirdies' -                                                                        

 
The Weirdies

The Chelsea man is excessively queer,
He only drinks coffee and doesn't like beer.
He's always "chatting" the girls, and yet
This seems to make him "one of the set".

His unkempt chin and uncut hair
Go with his feet which are usually bare.
If he wears shoes, they've never got soles,
And he's usually found in Bohemian holes.

His outsize sweater is generally black
Contrasting well with his shorty mac.
He wears his clothing merely to show
That he can keep up with the boys of Soho.

To find a girl he doesn't look far,
But into the nearest coffee bar,
Where he's sure to meet a Bohemian "yob".
They're all from Chelsea - what a mob!

The girls with hair right down their backs
Wear irregular clothes that look like sacks.
They walk about wearing father's sweater:
I really don't see why he should let 'er.

Their gaudy clothes of reds and greens
Match up with the style of their men-friends' jeans.
Now that's how it goes with the latest style:
Girls on their faces make-up pile,
The men wear anything they can find -
I shouldn't stare, I should just act blind!

A.R. Doubledee (5b)

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